When it comes to Apple, the thing most fresh in most peoples' minds have been Microsoft's "Laptop Hunter" ads. Microsoft's three ads took direct aim at Apple's "cool" but expensive laptops and compared them to Windows Vista-based laptops which offered similar specs for hundreds less.

Despite the back and forth that has been brewing on the internet with Microsoft's fresh attack on Apple, the boys from Cupertino have something else on their minds today: Q2 2009 results for the period ending March 29. Despite the downturn in the economy, Apple as a company managed to post revenue of $8.16 billion and profit of $1.21 billion which represented earnings of $1.33 per diluted share. Apple's results for the same period last year were $7.51 billion, 1.05 billion, and $1.16 respectively.

While Microsoft's Laptop Hunter ads came too late in the quarter to personally do any serious damage to Apple's momentum with Mac sales, it appears that the slowing economy and consumers' penchant for lower-priced netbooks was the motivating factor for the three percent slide in Mac sales to 2.22 million compared to a year ago.

On the other hand, iPod sales grew a modest three percent to 11.01 million units while iPhone sales were up a whopping 123 percent from a year ago to 3.79 million units.

"We are extremely pleased to report the best non-holiday quarter revenue and earnings in our history," said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. "Apple’s financial condition remains very robust, with almost $29 billion in cash and marketable securities on our balance sheet. Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $7.7 billion to $7.9 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $.95 to $1.00."

Most Apple fans will now be looking forward to June when the company is expected to announce a new hardware revision of the iPhone and OS v3.0. The next generation iPhone hardware is expected to feature faster connectivity speeds, dual cameras, and support for stereo Bluetooth. The latest iPhone OS revision will bring much-needed support for MMS messaging, copy/paste, push notifications, and landscape email support.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Lol. Maybe you should go back to school and brush up on those reading comprehension skills.

I said that a company with a lot of cash is probably about to do something expensive OR is being poorly managed. Why don't you look into all the acquisitions Microsoft did in 2000-2003: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_acq... . They had their third largest acquisition ever in that year.

There are a lot of other acquisitions there without the cost listed. In addition, some cash needs to be kept in reserve and some needs to be kept just in case a new, good deal comes along. My point is that Microsoft had a ton of cash, and they were using it for some large acquisitions.

Apple has more cash/liquid assets now than it has in years, possibly ever. So if it sits there, its poor business. I doubt it'll sit there for long. More likley Apple will try to do something big, maybe a buy out, a new project/product launch, new facilities, etc. Or, next quarter, they might simply have invested the money into more long-term assets.